


Sheet Bend

by greygerbil



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-18 07:21:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20635304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greygerbil/pseuds/greygerbil
Summary: Life has not been easy for Corvo, but even in the darkest hours you can find comfort with good people.





	Sheet Bend

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rhovanel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhovanel/gifts).

“Sir, can I keep you for a moment?”

Corvo halted in his ascent of the slippery ground leading up from the pier and gave Samuel a curt nod. Rain came down in a thin mist and he longed for his bed, cold and damp as the room atop the Hounds Pit Pub was, but Samuel rarely asked for anything and had earned the right to do so long ago.

“I noticed you where holding you left arm when you climbed in the boat. That wound’s bleeding through your sleeve now.”

“I’ll have some of Sokolov’s Elixir.”

Samuel stepped over the side of the boat. It occurred to Corvo once more how limber he was for his age and how steady he moved on ground that shifted endlessly under him. He had never reached that level of certainty on water.

“That stuff works miracles for sure. Still, I guess you could call me old-fashioned, but I think maybe someone should have a look at the wound. Clean it and all that.”

Samuel hesitated at the landing. He would not follow Corvo if he did not tell him to, would instead fuss with the boat a little, as Corvo had watched him do before, check the motor and the planks, make sure they would be ready to head out into the darkness once more when Corvo asked him to, then disappear into the hut that Corvo often looked down at from his window.

After a moment, Corvo nodded, not for the fact that he was worried about the wound – his head was too full of sorrows to bother with such trifles –, but because a voice buried deep in some unworthy part of his mind whispered that he could have Samuel’s hands on him. The nights after his return to the city had all been dismal. Sadness had sat as deep in his bones as the marrow for months as he came to terms with the fact that he’d lost her, though for the last years they had not been quite as close as once. Samuel, kind and honest, was the first one to make him think of tenderness again in a long time.

They walked inside the pub. Corvo tarried at the stairs as Samuel fetched water from the bathroom, cloth, a dusty bottle of some medicine, a crumpled but fresh package of bandages. They walked up the creaking wooden staircase until they had reached Corvo’s room.

“I suppose her ladyship’s already asleep at this hour,” Samuel said with a glance at the door that led to the tower in which Callista kept watch over the new queen. “Poor girl. After everything she’s seen, I hope she won’t be getting any nightmares.”

Corvo, for his part, hoped she was not dreaming of the Outsider, but who could know if such things did not run in the blood?

He sat down heavily on his bed after pulling off his coat. Samuel perched by his side, waiting for Corvo to offer him his arm.

The water came first, cold as it was. Samuel fixed Corvo’s arm with his hands, grip firm but gentle. The pain paled against the novelty of some friendly touch. Emily would hug him, but that was not quite the same flavour of affection he’d craved, though Corvo greatly appreciated it. A child was not there to carry your burdens, not even for just a moment when you clung too hard and desperately. However, from people his own age, he’d only gotten punishment as of late. He remembered the chair in Coldridge Prison’s interrogation room all too well. They’d cared that he stayed alive until an example could be made of him, everything else had been secondary.

The memory left him tense. Samuel’s hands on him halted. “Are you alright, Corvo?”

He switched between calling him by his name and ‘sir’, now slipping ever more often into the former. Corvo had never corrected him.

“It’s been a long half year,” Corvo just said.

Whatever Samuel saw in his eyes left him quiet. He nodded his head as he reached for the brown glass bottle. It contained a sterilising liquid, the smell of it sharp as the sting on Corvo’s flesh.

“Sorry about that,” Samuel said.

It couldn’t be helped, of course.

Samuel tightened a bandage around his arm, his rough fingers curled around his wrist. Thanks to the heart, Corvo knew of the wife who had left Samuel; he also knew of the hopeless love that Samuel had fled to sea from after he had separated from the woman, a merchant with bright blue eyes and a deep voice rough from smoking.

Of course, that he had liked one man did not mean that he would favour Corvo. Perhaps the way Samuel’s fingers lingered now before he pulled them back hastily did, though. The worry in his eyes when Corvo stumbled back from a mission, too late or bleeding. The smile when Corvo spoke to him, the rare times he did, the attentive way Samuel listened.

Or perhaps it was all wishful thinking. Corvo did not trust his own perception of reality these days. Sometimes, the real world seemed to threaten to break down into its pieces like the place where the Outsider took him in his dreams. At any time, he expected to turn around and find a person behind him frozen in place in some walk-in panorama, or a chunk of the wall to be missing, opening his gaze on the void.

He brushed his hand against Samuel’s, quick enough that it could almost be accidental if Samuel wanted it to be. Even if the world fell apart under his feet, he had to continue walking or he’d just be swallowed by the nothing.

Samuel looked surprised but not displeased. He kept his hand on Corvo’s arm.

“It’s going to be a cold, wet night. If you sleep in that hut, you’ll catch your death,” Corvo said, matter-of-factly.

“Well, I’ve survived worse, but I suppose it wouldn’t do to get sick now, would it? You’ll still have need of me a couple more times.”

They took off their boots. It was as good as an agreement; it was enough. Corvo distantly wondered if he would meet Samuel again after all this. In truth, he wanted to take him to Dunwall Tower, but Samuel was a free soul in his own way. He wouldn’t flutter away like a gull, he was there for his friends when needed, Corvo was sure, but he wouldn’t even sleep in a house most nights. Once upon a time he had fled to the sea. Could he be pulled into a haven?

Corvo’s body ached as he moved, his eyes already half-lidded, but as he dragged Samuel in for a hug, he pressed his mouth against his neck, half-heartedly pulling a this shirt. He desired this more than he should, too, but it was very late. Still, if you wanted a man to linger in your bed after you were done with the good part so you had an excuse to embrace him through the night, you did have to fuck him first.

Except Samuel took Corvo’s face in his hands and gently pushed him off.

“If you’re tired, I’m sure we could wait another night.”

Corvo hesitated. There was a quick beat reverberating through his body, for once that of his own heart, not the one he carried in his hand.

“Tomorrow,” he promised himself and Samuel, a pale smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. First thing in the morning if he could manage to wake early enough.

Samuel clasped him tightly in his arms and Corvo felt at peace.


End file.
